Obama plays to disaffected audience but most don’t blame him

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When President Obama reaches the podium for tonight’s State of the Union address, he’ll turn to a TV audience fed up with Washington and its incessant partisan bickering. But guess what: most viewers won’t be blaming him.

More than 90 percent of the American public thinks there’s too much partisan infighting and 70 percent say the federal government isn’t working well, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

But who’s the culprit? Only 27 percent blame the president. The biggest target of public disaffection are Republicans in Congress — at 48 percent — followed by congressional Democrats at 41 percent. Conducted Jan. 23-25, the survey of 800 adults has a 3.5 percent margin of error.

If the numbers are accurate, Obama’s message may find a fair amount of audience sympathy, particularly for his much-anticipated emphasis on jobs, the economy and curbs on Wall Street’s excesses.

Nearly three-quarters say not enough has been done to regulate Wall Street and the banking industry, while 51 percent want more emphasis on economic matters than they’ve seen up to now.

In fact, poll respondents are fairly optimistic about Obama’s future, with 54 percent saying he is facing either a short-term setback or no setback at all. There are even signs that his overall job approval rating has begun to edge up.

Obama is a man of conscience. He wants to help the people. Many of us just fall into the same partisan bickering we see in Washington and don’t pay attention to where the real problems are coming from.

Corporate lobbyists are always set on turning citizen centered initiatives into accounting and finance issues. Corporations are not citizens and they must not be allowed a voice in crafting the laws that we citizens must live by.

I really hope that someone on the Obama team is reading these posts and taking them into account. Corporate citizenship distorts the voice of the people. Remove them from the people’s government.

I hope that President Obama speaks out against the undue influence of both the Corporations and Unions regarding political donations. I believe then, that the people will see he is on their side. I believe he is for the people.

I would remind you that a union is no more a citizen than a corporation. You don’t seem to have any problem with that assemblage of people affecting the outcome of votes.

This government is rapidly turning the most advanced country in the world into third rate backwater where the citizens care for nothing more than how they are going to get their next handout. Look around you at how many of your friends and neighbors want someone else to pay for their problems, not to mention their life style.

Whine and moan about the horrible salaries that bankers and Wall Street “Fat Cats” draw, but don’t say a word about Oprah, Jennifer or any of the other Hollywood types drawing millions. How many jobs did they create? How many people’s retirement accounts did they enhance. Ball players? Rap Stars? If you draw a retirement, where the heck do you think your money is invested; Obama’s sock drawer? How come the CEO’s like Warren Buffet and George Soros are not having their heads handed to them as nasty “Fat Cats” benefiting from other people’s work.

It is completely naive to believe that by taking money from one group and giving it to another you will benefit either party. Never worked in history – won’t work now. The ranks of those who receive the money will grow larger and the number of those who lose money will get smaller as they quit or leave.

There is partisan bickering in DC because there are two strongly committed groups, each with their own ideas of how to proceed. The problem comes when one side refuses to compromise on any point and the other is frozen out – no matter which initial is next their name. If you elect a Dem or a Repub because they believe in the position you stand for, do you want them to persevere in that view or just cave to the opposition? You want them to fight for what you believe in, just like the other side does.

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It is completely naive to believe that by taking money from one group and giving it to another you will benefit either party. Never worked in history – won’t work now. The ranks of those who receive the money will grow larger and the number of those who lose money will get smaller as they quit or leave.
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Corporate America is going to learn that lesson if there is truly justice in this country. They took tax payer money to keep from going bankrupt after cooking their books. It’s time they paid up.

If I am correct, unions cannot give campaign contributions but they can donate to PACs. The court ruling that corporations can donate to the candidate of their choice via freedom of speech only applies because corporations are considered citizens under US law. Big banks and big industries, being run privately or by a small group, can use the profits generated by people of differing political perspectives, to effectively drown out their concerns by giving money to the candidate that is most friendly to the corporate interest.

That elected official then, is not a representative of the people but a representative of their corporate constituency. This is a perversion of our government and must be abolished.

Corporate entities have no moral/ethical core. They are not living breathing human beings. They care for nothing but the “bottom line”. As for the actors you mention, they at least provide something to the public honestly. It’s only entertainment. But that’s what we pay them for and they deliver beautifully. What did the corporate constituency deliver? Just look around.

Abolish corporate personhood and return the government of the people back to the people.

That IS the problem: Partisan bickering at the expense of our welfare and moving forward. It is totally ridiculous and I cannot accept that my taxpayer dollars are spent paying salaries of such a large group of baffoons who choose to not work together FOR US.

You work for us jacka**’s. We pay you to have our backs and you don’t. I am so fed up with congress I want them all fired!

What IS the cost of congressional salaries in our budget? Cut ALL of them out, set up committees to make proposals and we can all vote online instead of paying them to represent us, which they do not do. Saves some money and we can then move forward with things.

I vote to end all partisanship now. It’s not efficient and we are in a hurry here to get economy, jobs, housing, banking and the rest of it back on track. Save some jobs for foreign affairs; I know nothing about war.

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David Morgan has covered news from Wall Street and Fleet Street to the White House, the Pentagon and Congress, including politics, macroeconomics, military affairs, corporate finance, U.S. intelligence, national security and the international markets. He has also reported from Atlanta on the rise of American conservatism, civil rights, homegrown terrorism and the Olympics, and helped chronicle the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath from Philadelphia, New York and Washington.